Owner's Top Expectations Fulfilled

In the winner's circle at The Red Mile, Daniel Plouffe had the happy look of someone who'd shelled out $120,000 (U.S.) for a horse and just been repaid in full.

"It felt good to win a big one with a trotter," said the supermarket owner, back home in Quebec after venturing to Kentucky last week to visit his former star Blissfull Hall at his retirement home at Saga Farm and watch his two-year-old trotting filly Top Expectations spring a 10-1 upset in the $250,000 Kentucky Sires Stake final at The Red Mile.

Plouffe has captured some big races in his three decades as a racehorse owner, with Little Brown Jug victor Blissfull Hall accumulating $1.4 million and pacing mare Marnie Hall amassing $1.2 million for him, but it had been 11 years since he'd enjoyed a stakes win of that magnitude, when Marnie Hall won the $250,000 Classic series final at Dover Downs in November, 2006.

Top Expectations, by Cantab Hall, had only one victory in seven starts prior to the final, "but she'd raced well in the two sires stakes previous, finishing first and second, and I expected her to be in the top three," said Plouffe. Trained by Erv Miller and driven by Marcus Miller, Top Expectations has now earned $168,578. She'll make a few more starts in Lexington then be pointed for the Breeders Crown at Hoosier Park, Plouffe said.

Hoosier is where another stakes winner that he co-owns, three-year-old pacer Sports Column, will make his next start. The Sportswriter colt drew post seven for Friday's $160,000 Jenna's Beach Boy stake, where he faces the formidable Huntsville. "That's a challenge, but he's been good this year, with the Ontario Sires Stakes Super Final still to come," Plouffe said.

As for Blissfull Hall, retired this year at 21 after a productive career at stud on two continents, Plouffe said "he's really in shape...like he was still racing."